Kinda hit the jackpot in the last month. In a 28 day period I found 10 Indian Heads in 28 days, ranging from 1863 to 1907. One I found is this old crusty 1902 Indian Head Penny. [attachment 324038 IMAG2644.jpg] I thought, what the heck, I've tried several times to clean old crusty Indian's and always ruined them, not that they were worth anything the way they were! I think I've found a way to restore the eye appeal at least. This worked for an 1864 IH that I found, it too wasn't worth much the way it was.
This particular 1902 Indian Head was first soaked in Olive Oil for several weeks, I've done this in the past without much change. But this time, I used a regular #2 Pencil. I took the 1902 out of the Olive Oil and rinsed it off with plenty of soap and water. Then dried it (without rubbing it) with a paper towel. I work at a high school so I find hundreds of like new pencils all the time, so I will sharpen 8 - 10 pencils and start (gently) rubbing the coin with the sharpened tip, the graphite seems to get under some of the crust and loosen it, took me 5 -10 minutes to get over the front and back. The back was worse than the front, couldn't really see much of anything, I'll post it later on this forum, but I'm at my limit on pics here. Going over it once, then rubbing it with plenty of soap, barely touching it between my fingers, rinsing under running water, then more soap and just barely touching it with soft bristled tooth brush, then rinsing again and drying it with paper towel. Careful not to rub too hard, because a tooth brush will indeed scratch a coin if looked at through a microscope. This is how it turned out after the first time over[attachment 324039 IMAG2649.jpg]. Second time[attachment 324040 IMAG2662.jpg]. Third time. [attachment 324041 IMAG2667.jpg]
Then I looked at my picture and could see where I still needed to touch up some more, always make sure your pencils are very sharp, that's why I had 10 pencils handy. I also use an electric sharpener, saves lots of time sharpening. First couple of times you will use all of them going over both sides once. The color in these last pics are more true of color, the first four didn't pick up on the green because of the background color and lighting. Here is the fifth time over. [attachment 324042 IMAG2684.jpg]
The last time over it I again used my picture on my phone to see where I needed to get some more, with a very sharp pencil you can gently clean out the small letters and numbers, like the O and A. Does a pretty decent job. Here is my final time over it. [attachment 324043 IMAG2698.jpg] Notice, this still leaves the green patina on it but removes almost all the crusties, Careful with the edges because you can push too hard and chip off some of the patina there, if you look closely you can see some here, Be sure to practice on lot's of coins that aren't worth much even if they were in great shape, before you start on an 1877 Indian Head! That's on my Bucket list next!!! Now, I'm going to take it in to my coin dealer and ask him to tell me if it has been cleaned, I can't see any scratches under 10x magnification, not saying there isn't any. But now when I show it to someone, they will say WOW, that's really cool! Before they would look at a crusty Indian Head and say something like, that's cool, but doesn't seem worth my time to go out to dig one up.
This particular 1902 Indian Head was first soaked in Olive Oil for several weeks, I've done this in the past without much change. But this time, I used a regular #2 Pencil. I took the 1902 out of the Olive Oil and rinsed it off with plenty of soap and water. Then dried it (without rubbing it) with a paper towel. I work at a high school so I find hundreds of like new pencils all the time, so I will sharpen 8 - 10 pencils and start (gently) rubbing the coin with the sharpened tip, the graphite seems to get under some of the crust and loosen it, took me 5 -10 minutes to get over the front and back. The back was worse than the front, couldn't really see much of anything, I'll post it later on this forum, but I'm at my limit on pics here. Going over it once, then rubbing it with plenty of soap, barely touching it between my fingers, rinsing under running water, then more soap and just barely touching it with soft bristled tooth brush, then rinsing again and drying it with paper towel. Careful not to rub too hard, because a tooth brush will indeed scratch a coin if looked at through a microscope. This is how it turned out after the first time over[attachment 324039 IMAG2649.jpg]. Second time[attachment 324040 IMAG2662.jpg]. Third time. [attachment 324041 IMAG2667.jpg]
Then I looked at my picture and could see where I still needed to touch up some more, always make sure your pencils are very sharp, that's why I had 10 pencils handy. I also use an electric sharpener, saves lots of time sharpening. First couple of times you will use all of them going over both sides once. The color in these last pics are more true of color, the first four didn't pick up on the green because of the background color and lighting. Here is the fifth time over. [attachment 324042 IMAG2684.jpg]
The last time over it I again used my picture on my phone to see where I needed to get some more, with a very sharp pencil you can gently clean out the small letters and numbers, like the O and A. Does a pretty decent job. Here is my final time over it. [attachment 324043 IMAG2698.jpg] Notice, this still leaves the green patina on it but removes almost all the crusties, Careful with the edges because you can push too hard and chip off some of the patina there, if you look closely you can see some here, Be sure to practice on lot's of coins that aren't worth much even if they were in great shape, before you start on an 1877 Indian Head! That's on my Bucket list next!!! Now, I'm going to take it in to my coin dealer and ask him to tell me if it has been cleaned, I can't see any scratches under 10x magnification, not saying there isn't any. But now when I show it to someone, they will say WOW, that's really cool! Before they would look at a crusty Indian Head and say something like, that's cool, but doesn't seem worth my time to go out to dig one up.
